China Backpedals One-Child Policy, Maybe Too Late

Social Engineering: China says it will ease some of the restrictions of its one-child policy following its Communist Party meeting. Given the damage it's done, this is to be welcomed. Too bad it may already be too late.

After a four-day meeting of Communist Party leaders in Beijing that ended Tuesday, China announced that parents from either rural or urban zones will be allowed two children. Enacted in 1979, the intrusive policy embodied all the best leftist truisms of its day. A one-child-per-family policy supposedly was "humane." It would ensure that China could "feed itself" as well as reduce the consumption of resources that new babies somehow cause.

Instead, a Beijing-based think tank said the country had paid "a huge political and social cost" in a whole raft of unintended consequences that come of government-knows-best social engineering.

The forcible prevention of as many as 400 million births has given China an aging population now, with 194 million people over 60 in a population of 1.3 billion, or about 11%. By 2020, according to the U.N., China is expected to have 23% of its population over 65, more retirees to care for than young workers to support them.

The policy also has driven a male-to-female imbalance in the population, in the neighborhood of 118 males to 100 females, as female infants over the years have been aborted or killed off after birth to ensure that the single child allowed by the state was male.

It's led to the murder of female babies, created optimal conditions for trafficking of women, and foreshadows a migration of men. So much for all the Tom Friedman-esque claims about a China poised for global greatness and ready to rule the world.

But even with the relaxed policy, China will have a hard time restoring its lopsided population imbalance.

For one thing, it's unlikely the most productive workers on the urban coasts will have more children. The cost of living is high and as wealth accumulates, population growth naturally slows.

More likely, those who do have more children will be in poor rural areas, which will require the very resources the state sought to avoid paying in its initial policy.

So much for the virtues of central planning. Yes, China's move is a step in the right direction, but the scope of its population problems remains enormous.

Social Engineering: China says it will ease some of the restrictions of its one-child policy following its Communist Party meeting. Given the damage it's done, this is to be welcomed. Too bad it may already be too late.

After a four-day meeting of Communist Party leaders in Beijing that ended Tuesday, China announced that parents from either rural or urban zones will be allowed two children. Enacted in 1979, the intrusive policy embodied all the best leftist truisms of its day. A one-child-per-family policy supposedly was "humane." It would ensure that China could "feed itself" as well as reduce the consumption of resources that new babies somehow cause.

Instead, a Beijing-based think tank said the country had paid "a huge political and social cost" in a whole raft of unintended consequences that come of government-knows-best social engineering.

The forcible prevention of as many as 400 million births has given China an aging population now, with 194 million people over 60 in a population of 1.3 billion, or about 11%. By 2020, according to the U.N., China is expected to have 23% of its population over 65, more retirees to care for than young workers to support them.

The policy also has driven a male-to-female imbalance in the population, in the neighborhood of 118 males to 100 females, as female infants over the years have been aborted or killed off after birth to ensure that the single child allowed by the state was male.

It's led to the murder of female babies, created optimal conditions for trafficking of women, and foreshadows a migration of men. So much for all the Tom Friedman-esque claims about a China poised for global greatness and ready to rule the world.

But even with the relaxed policy, China will have a hard time restoring its lopsided population imbalance.

For one thing, it's unlikely the most productive workers on the urban coasts will have more children. The cost of living is high and as wealth accumulates, population growth naturally slows.

More likely, those who do have more children will be in poor rural areas, which will require the very resources the state sought to avoid paying in its initial policy.

So much for the virtues of central planning. Yes, China's move is a step in the right direction, but the scope of its population problems remains enormous.

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